AI for humanitarians: A conversation on the hype, the hope, the future
September 9, 2023By WILL SWANTON , from The Weekend Australian Magazine.
Desperate to rescue her terrified 91-year-old grandmother from Kyiv, Karina turned to strangers for help. But who could she trust?
Karina White. Picture: Nick Cubbin
“There’s nobody here.”
“Where has everybody gone?”
“They’ve just gone.”
“Do you want me to get you out?”
“Please, Karina. Please.”
Babushka lives alone in Kyiv, Ukraine. She stares out her window on Budivelnykiv Street, counting her neighbours as they pack up their cars and flee. One gone, two gone, three gone. All gone. “I am the only person left in the building,” she says. “None of them has said goodbye.”
She’s 91 years of age. Vulnerable. Scared. The shelling is getting closer. The walls are shaking, the sky’s screaming. She’s lived through World War II, Stalin’s famine, Chernobyl, but this may do her in. Karina is her granddaughter and she’s on the phone from Sydney. Asking the bleeding obvious with a breaking heart. Everything OK?
Until now, Babushka had been playing down the danger. Oh, there’s nothing to worry about, Karina. I haven’t really noticed the explosions, my hearing is so bad. What war, dear? Babushka had been telling a few fibs there. Time for the truth. “I am extremely frightened on this telephone call,” she later confides. “I feel I am at my end. People are panicking. I am hiding in my bathroom and locking the door. It is hard for me to find the words to describe this moment. I tell Karina there is a large amount of urgency. I am afraid. No lights are on in my apartment block. I am the only person here. There is not another soul. How do you put into words the feeling that you are going to die?”
Babushka is what you call your grandma in Ukraine. Her name is Anya. “She’s a tough cookie,” Karina says. “She knows how to put on a brave face. Everything she’s been through in her life – she doesn’t scare easily, put it that way.” Her family shared one slice of bread a day during the famine and she’d pass out at school from hunger. She was cleaning houses at the age of five because the family needed money. “Nothing’s going to faze her after all that, right? She’s such a trooper.” But a week into the war, as the fighting escalates, the tone of their conversation changes.
“Please, Karina. Please.”
She’s lived in this fourth-floor apartment in a five-storey, Soviet-style complex for 62 years. Her husband and her brother have passed and she relies on neighbours for her day-to-day survival. They would knock on her door and say, “Anya, we’re going to the pharmacy, do you want us to get your medicine? Can we do some shopping for you?” Now she’s standing at her window, counting them out to Karina as they go. There’s no lift and she can’t use the stairs without help. She’s trapped. “I’m asking, ‘How much medication do you have, babushka? How much food? That’s when she says it. ‘Can you send someone to get me? Please?’ ”
Two kilograms of potatoes. A bit of meat. Enough food for two weeks, Anya reckons. Her heart, blood pressure and diabetes medications are dwindling. “I’m shocked to hear her like this,” Karina says. “She needs food and her medicines but she has no way of getting them. She says, ‘At the end of this war, Karina, you are going to have to pick me up in an urn.’ ”
Family photo of Anya with her daughter Larissa (Karina’s mother) in Kyiv. Picture: Supplied
Karina White, 35, calls it the Babushka Smuggle. Getting gran out of Ukraine. She moved to Australia with her parents at the age of two and has a full-time job as a leasing executive for a retail group. Her husband, Andrew, works full-time in health management. They have two children, Matthew, two, and Mila, four. “Very busy,” she says. “Very full-on. Jobs, young kids – those responsibilities don’t stop because something else needs to be done.” But she hits the phones, starting with the obvious places that might help. DFAT? Can’t assist. Embassy? Sorry. Her local MP? Doesn’t get involved in this stuff. She moves to charity organisations. International Red Cross? Nope. Caritas? Nup. “I’ve never been more disappointed in my life.”
She’s reluctant to post information on social media. “I was born in Kyiv. I’m fluent in Russian and Ukrainian,” she says. “I’ve been there enough to know the street smarts. If you put on Facebook that your 91-year-old gran is alone in her apartment block and needs help getting to a border, you’re inviting an opportunistic person to go there and rob her. Kidnap her. Kill her. Who knows? It can be that sort of country if you’re not careful.”
But as the days pass and things worsen in Ukraine, Karina grows desperate. “I’m begging people. YouTubers. Bloggers. There’s a couple of Tasmanian school teachers who are going to be evacuated by DFAT. They can’t help. I get onto every Australian TV reporter in Kyiv.”
Journalist Carrie-Anne Greenbank is in Kyiv for Nine News, sitting in the bunker of her hotel when an Instagram message arrives: Carrie hello. My name is Karina. I’m from Sydney, Australia. I’ve been trying for the last 5 days to evacuate my grandma from her apartment in Kyiv…
“She sounds quite panicked,” Carrie says. “She sends me a photo of her babushka.” Carrie and camera operator Jessica Miocevich want to help if they can. “Carrie gets straight back to me,” Karina says. “Girl’s an angel. She’s all like, ‘Yep, let’s do it. Tomorrow. We’ll put your granny on the train to Lviv. That’s a safe haven.’ Then Carrie will get her crew in Lviv to take babushka to the border. I’m like, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing. I have friends in Europe who will take it from there. Best plan ever.’ Then Carrie calls back and says, ‘No time to waste. Your gran has 20 minutes to get ready.’ ”
Sixty-two years in the same apartment. Twenty minutes to pack it up and leave. Karina sings advice down the phone: grab your glasses and wear something warm! “I am excited in this moment,” Anya says. “Karina has told me to pack a suitcase but I don’t own a suitcase. I have only a handbag and a small, what do you call it? Duffel bag. I pack the most important things – my passport, my medication, my glasses, my house papers and my spare house key. And then I wait.”
The situation in Kyiv is tense. There’s been shelling. Air-raid sirens are going off a dozen times a day. A 60km-long convoy of Russian forces is closing in. The fear is that they will encircle Kyiv in days or even hours. The plan is that Anya will stay at the hotel with Carrie but first they have to get her across the only bridge between her home and the hotel. “Ukrainian forces have blown up most of the bridges into Kyiv, so this one is always heavily congested,” Carrie says. “It can take hours to cross. There’s not enough time for us to get to Karina’s grandma, so we find a driver who lives close by.” The plan almost comes off. Anya is in the car with her possessions. They’re driving over the bridge – when the Ukrainian military suddenly blocks it. They’re forced to turn around. “It’s so disappointing,” Carrie says.
Babushka is partly to blame. She asked to have a last-minute shower. Longest shower ever. “She probably would have made it across the bridge if it wasn’t for that shower,” Carrie smiles. “We try again the next day, multi-tasking while filming. Karina buys Anya a train ticket. We arrange for our fixer and driver to pick up granny and take her to the train station.”
From Carrie to Karina on Instagram: “Babushka has crossed the bridge. In 20 minutes they will be at the station.”
Karina: “PERFECT!!!!!”
Carrie to Karina at 1.55pm: “Still not on train yet. It’s madness at the railway station. But they’re still moving forward.”
Karina: “Thank God for your team.”
Carrie: “I just hope it works. I’m so nervous for your granny.”
The train they’re waiting for is suddenly cancelled and the next service is an evacuation train. “It’s madness,” Carrie says. “It’s an eight-hour trip to Lviv. Babushka will have to stand the entire way. She can’t do it.” People are jam-packed on the platform and Anya worries she might die on the train. “It’s so sad. She’s taken home again. It isn’t worth the risk. It’s mayhem. She’s safer in her apartment than on one of those evacuation trains.”
Carrie messages Karina: “There’s no way your granny can catch the train. Sorry I don’t have better news… the poor dear… the whole ordeal of trying to get out was really difficult for her. I’ll let you know if I can shore up a better way to get her to safety.”
That night, Carrie is told to evacuate Kyiv and there’s no room in the car for Anya. “We’re trying to get her onto an evacuation minibus but that doesn’t work either,” she says. “It’s heartbreaking.”
Karina’s apps stop dinging. Phone’s not ringing. She tries an Australian security firm called Empire Protection. They put out the feelers and one of their contacts calls back. “It’s a long shot,” she says. “This far-fetched option gets back to me. He’s an American, ex-CIA. He calls me in the middle of the night. He’s being sort of cagey. He says he does a bit of work on the side for NGOs. He won’t tell me his name. He calls himself a highly skilled security professional. I’m pretty suspicious… He’s direct, straight to the point. He tells me to download an [encrypted messaging] app called Signal.”
The highly skilled security bloke tells Karina, “I’m involved in certain things.” She thinks, “What is this? A scene from Taken? Where’s my Liam Neeson?” She downloads Signal and provides a rough outline of the situation. The highly skilled security bloke says he’ll see what he can do. He tells Karina to keep quiet about their discussion. “If anyone asks, I just have to say they’re a group of kind locals who want to assist people in need.”
More radio silence. The urgency rises. Karina looks for another option. She finds a website that arranges rescues, fills out the details. “A guy rings me straight away,” Karina says. “I ask, ‘How much?’ He says, ‘One million US dollars.’ I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’ He’s like, ‘OK, we can probably do it for $250,000.’ I’m thinking, ‘Wow, mate. That was a quick discount. What do you think we’re doing here? Rescuing someone famous?’ I tell him I don’t have that kind of money. I hang up.”
The highly skilled security bloke calls back. “I tell him about the $US1 million. He’s like, ‘What website did you look at? What details did you put in? What information did you give? What did they say? Send us the number. Send us the screenshot.’ I’m freaking out because I think I’ve given too much information to these random $US1 million people. They’re going to go to gran’s apartment and kidnap her. Demand a ransom.”
Operation Babushka.
Ivan Manco lives in the small Slovakian town of Dolny Kubin. Population, not many. He’s the father of Tomas Manco, who lives 300m from Karina and Andrew in Sydney’s Dee Why. They’re firm family friends. Karina asks Ivan to be on call to collect Babushka at the Polish border. If she ever gets there. “Yes, I am prepared. I have tools as well as willingness,” Ivan says. “Keep me posted. I cannot cross the border. Anywhere from Ukraine’s border, I can pick her up, help her, feed her, accommodate her and send to Australia.”
In fact, he’s less optimistic than he sounds. Ivan says of these first exchanges: “I am sceptical. Generally speaking, I think the plan to rescue Babushka Anya is manageable. But I’m not sure if it’s too late to escape from Kyiv.”
On March 5, the highly skilled security bloke’s team say they will collect Anya at 10am. A fee has been negotiated, mates’ rates. “The current plan is for your grandmother to be transported to Lviv in a car. A female will be travelling with her – essentially her caretaker. Someone on our team will keep you posted on pick-up in Kyiv and arrival in Lviv.” Karina has received some background information on the rescuers. “They’re Special Forces,” she says. “They usually take diplomats to safety, rescue people from sex trafficking. I’m thinking, ‘Great. I really have found my Liam Neeson.’”
Anya leaves her home in Kyiv. Picture: Supplied
Come 10am at Budivelnykiv St, there’s no Liam Neeson. Anya waits and waits. The highly skilled security bloke rocks up at 4pm and calls Karina. “I get into a bit of a panic,” she says. “A man I don’t know has just been in her apartment. I don’t know enough about him to trust him. I don’t sleep at all. I’m just sitting there all night, waiting for something bad to happen. But sometimes you just have to trust unconditionally, right? Trust that a complete stranger has goodness in his heart.”
Anya trusts, too. “I can feel in my soul that he is the person who’s going to save me,” she says. “There is something in his behaviour and in his voice that tells me he is trustworthy… I feel relief and happiness. But I feel sadness, too. I cannot take everything with me. I have to leave behind my photos. And I leave without two baby wraps I have kept from when Karina was a baby. The beautiful cream wraps with the polka dots. And I have kept her first bowl, spoon and cup. I am sad because I leave without these important things.”
Meanwhile, Karina is hammering her Liam Neeson on Signal. Send me a photo of the two of you. Right now. And then I want to see a photo when she’s in car. And then I want to contact you while you’re driving. A video comes through. He is holding Babushka’s hand. They’re walking to a white car on the far side of the street. He doesn’t show his face. He’s saying, “Evacuation of Babushka Anya.” Karina replies: My darling babushka. May God bless her on her journey to us. He says: We will make sure she gets to the border. Whether with the driver or by other means.
On the road to Lviv, Anya’s blood-sugarlevels are high. Left untreated, hyperglycaemia could put her into a coma. She’s clutching in pain at her ribs. The highly skilled security bloke gives her diabetes-friendly food and drink. Kasha (cooked grain) and kefir (a fermented milk drink), everything Karina has suggested.
They only make it as far as Khmelnytskyi. Halfway to Lviv. The highly skilled security bloke tells Karina that Babushka will be given dinner and a place to rest. “It shouldn’t be taking this long,” she says. “And there’s been a lot of silence. I want to know why. They say they had to find a pharmacy to buy Babushka’s medication. They had to find the right food for her. All of which has taken time. They keep saying, ‘You have to trust us.’”
When they reach Lviv, the highly skilled security bloke tells Karina, “I’m handing your grandmother to another man.” This isn’t part of the plan. “What other man?” Is this where it happens, Karina wonders. Is this where they tell her that grandma is a hostage and she has to pay the million dollars?
“The new guy sends me a photo. It’s one of Babushka with the guy who has taken her this far. He’s wearing the full military get-up. Head-to-toe in Special Forces commando gear. He’s more of a Liam Neeson than Liam Neeson is. Grandma says she felt happy and safe with him. I say, ‘I bet you did!’ She’s sitting there like Jennifer Lopez, having a fine old time. I mean, look at this guy. What I’m really thinking is, ‘Who are these people? Why are they helping us? How did I get into this vortex?’ These incredible people are telling me, ‘Your granny is a beautiful lady. We’re going to make sure you’re reunited.’”
Ivan, far right, Anya in the back of the van and Polish ambulance and local volunteers on the border. Picture: Supplied
Ivan revs up his motorhome. Points it towards Smil’nytsya. Karina calls. Frantic. They’re going to a different border. The one at Korczowa, two hours to the north. Karina peppers Ivan with questions. Can you see them? What’s happening? Have they rung you? Why haven’t they rung you? Have they messaged you yet? They’re not answering their phone. Why aren’t they answering their phone?” Ivan sends her a photo of a pint of Rybniki beer. His caption reads: “Making the best of the situation.” He barely has time to knock the froth off. He tells Karina: They have called me. They have crossed the border. I think I can see them. In a few minutes I will be with Anya.
It’s nearly 9am in Sydney. A picture comes through that reminds Karina of the selfie taken by Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars. The camera is held high. All the big names are in it. Ivan. The highly skilled security bloke. Volunteers from the border. Anya is in the background, sitting in Ivan’s motorhome, clutching at her ribs. Karina tells Ivan: This is a photo I will treasure my entire life. The highly skilled security bloke messages Karina: Yay! We are happy that she is safe. Thank you for sharing your babushka with us.
It’s nearly midnight at Korczowa. Ivan feels great relief. “I have never met Anya but I well up when I see her,” he says. But she’s complaining about her ribs, and her blood pressure and diabetes are out of control. She’s exhausted. Ivan takes her to the nearest restaurant. She has soup and varenyiki, a standard Polish-Ukrainian-Russian meal. She guzzles tea. “We are addressing her high sugar levels with pills and proper food,” he says.
Ivan drives Anya to safety in Slovakia, a five-hour round trip from the Polish border. Picture: Supplied
They reach Slovakia. “We go directly to the hospital for an X-ray,” Ivan says. “It confirms a fractured rib. A friend of mine, a nurse, agrees to come to my apartment to help Anya with her showers. We buy her new clothes. She spends a week in my apartment. Day by day, she gets better and better. We develop some routines. Sugar level blood test. Then diabetes pills. Then breakfast. Then blood pressure measurement. Then TV. Then yoghurt. Then TV and sleep. Then calling Karina. Then lunch. Then TV. Then snack. Then shower and dinner. Then pills. Then bedtime.”
Ivan tells Karina that Anya looks like a fairy godmother. It becomes his nickname for her. Fairy godmother becomes quite a hit around the village. She’s still at Dolny Kubin on March 8, International Women’s Day. Ivan’s friends and neighbours bring her flowers. “She gains a lot of respect from the people who help me with her. How brave and smart she is. What we mostly talk about is her flight to Sydney. She’s very anxious to get there. Every day we rehearse the details. We will take the car to Vienna. The plane will take her to Sydney. She repeats the details so she doesn’t forget them.”
Karina gets to work on arranging a travel visa. More resistance. No one over 80 seems to be getting one. She writes to the Minister for Immigration, Alex Hawke. The visa comes through after a week. Flights booked. Vienna to Dubai; Dubai to Sydney. Fairy godmother repacks her handbag and what do you call it? Duffel bag. Ivan organises her pre-flight PCR test. Gives her an antithrombotic injection. At Vienna airport, Anya tells Ivan her 92nd birthday party will be in Sydney in September. He promises to be there. “We say a teary goodbye,” he says. “She is scared.”
Anya has asked Karina, “Will you meet me at arrivals?” Karina says yes. It’s a promise – until the Department of Health intervenes. They call while Babushka is in the air. She’ll have to quarantine. Karina protests. “She’s old. She can’t speak English. She’s unwell. If I’m not at the airport to meet her, you’re going to have one very distressed lady on your hands.” But that’s not the process, Karina is told. She tells the Department of Health what she thinks of its processes. “My dad died of Covid five weeks ago,” she says. “We weren’t allowed into the hospital to say goodbye to him. My dad died alone. When we finally got an exemption to see him, it was 48 hours after he died. Where’s your heart? My family will never get over what happened with Dad. And now this.”
Karina is told: OK, you can do quarantine with Anya. When the paperwork comes through, the waiver says she’s volunteering to do quarantine. Karina changes the wording before sending it back. Forced to do quarantine, she writes. Girl’s a fighter.
Karina, her grandmother Anya and her mother Larissa after being reunited in Sydney. Picture: Supplied
“Want to hear an amazing story?” Karina asks.
Shoot.
“In January, right before he died, when dissent was building between Ukraine and Russia but the war hadn’t started yet, my mum, Larissa, was saying, ‘I’m so worried about Anya’,” Karina says. “Larissa is Anya’s daughter. Dad said to her, ‘Don’t worry. Your mum is going to be here. Your mum is going to be with you soon.’ We were like, ‘What are you talking about, Dad?’ There was no reason for him to say that. The war hadn’t even started.”
“There’s more,” Karina says. “In Orthodox religion it takes 40 days for the soul to find its final resting place. On the 40th day, you go to church for a service. The sermon is about the soul crossing over to heaven. On the morning of the 40th day after Dad died – that was the day Babushka crossed the border. My dad was looking over us, right? His soul wouldn’t have crossed into heaven until he saw her crossing the border. I think before he went to where he was going, he made sure she was where she needed to be.”
Anya with her daughter Larissa, left, and granddaughter Karina in Sydney. Picture: Nick Cubbin
They’re reunited at Sydney airport. Hugs and tears. They quarantine together and when they emerge to go home no walls are shaking. The sky’s not screaming. The Nine journalist Carrie is ecstatic to hear that Anya escaped. “It’s been strange to feel so invested in the safety and happiness of a person you barely know,” she says. “Karina has been the star of the show. It’s been an almighty effort.”
Ivan is tickled pink. Bloke’s an angel. “When Karina sent me the picture with Anya, I was so happy,” he says. “I have forwarded the picture to all people involved in the Babushka trip from Kyiv to Sydney.” The highly skilled security bloke even waives his fee. “I have no idea why they’ve chosen to help us but I’m so grateful,” Karina says.
Anya hopes for survivors in Kyiv. The neighbours who took off without saying goodbye. Her photos. The bowl, spoon and cup first used by Karina as a child. Mainly, though, she hopes to see those baby wraps again. The beautiful cream ones with the polka dots. “Rejoiceful is the word I will use,” she says. She knows she is safe now. “I am with Karina and I am well. I am very proud of my granddaughter. I love her. She is my hero. No words are able to explain what she has done for me. How do you put into words the feeling of someone having saved your life?”
